See why 28 cyclists are riding 4,000 miles across the U.S. (through Gastonia)

Wednesday

Jun 11, 2014 at 12:01 AMJun 11, 2014 at 9:22 PM

Phillip Gardner

GASTONIA — Any time Lauren Badalucco struggles to keep the wheels moving during her 4,000-mile bicycle trip across the United States, she thinks of her grandfather. He died of lung cancer two years ago but never gave up, she said.

He’s one reason Badalucco signed up for the 4K for Cancer, a cycling program that raises money for young adults affected by cancer. Badalucco is part of Team San Diego, a 28-person group that is cycling from Baltimore to San Diego over a 70-day span. The cyclists ended Day 11 in Gastonia on Wednesday to stay overnight.

“When you’re on the bike every single day and you just want to stop pedaling, it’s so hard, but you think about how much harder it is to be a cancer patient and how much harder it was to lose someone you love to this awful disease,” Badalucco said. “That’s really what gets you through the day. Your body can do it. You mentally have to say, ‘I can do this.’”

Team San Diego is one of four teams in the program for the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults. All four teams began their journeys in Baltimore and the other three groups are headed for Portland, San Francisco and Seattle.

Last year, 127 participants raised nearly $775,000, according to the group’s website, 4kforcancer.org. This year, about 140 cyclists have raised more than $1 million, said one of the Team San Diego riders. Each cyclists was required to raise $4,500 in donations before the trip began.

This marks the program’s 13th year of cycling across America.

The Team San Diego cyclists are college students or recent college graduates. For the most part, none of them knew each other before this venture.

Few of them have prior experience as long-distance athletes, but all of them have a connection to cancer. One of them, Erika Oertle of Long Island, N.Y., is a cancer survivor, having been diagnosed with thyroid cancer four years ago as a high school senior. She underwent surgery to remove the cancer, and she’s now cancer-free.

The cyclists stayed the night at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in downtown Gastonia, where 12 volunteers fed their out-of-town visitors Wednesday evening and planned to feed them another meal Thursday morning.

“I just kind of felt like it was something I’d like to do,” said Jody White, who headed up the hosting efforts after the group contacted the church asking for help. White’s mother died of breast cancer and her father-in-law died of prostate cancer, so she jumped at the opportunity to help this group.

Wednesday’s segment marked the longest so far, covering 102 miles from Rockingham. The cyclists can’t travel the most direct route between stops because they need to find the safer, lesser-traveled roads. Two vans ride ahead of the cyclists to check the route and set up hydration breaks.

“You really have to take care of your body on the ride,” said cyclist Tyler Stocksdale, a recent University of Maryland Baltimore County graduate. (Read his entertaining daily blog here.) “We have water stops every 10 to 20 miles and we have food at each one of those, too.”

The group will leave Thursday morning for Spartanburg, S.C. The remaining route winds through Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona before finishing in San Diego on Aug. 9.

With so many miles yet to cover, the stay in Gastonia was a short one, but White was happy to chip in and “just kind of renew their spirit and give them something good to eat and drink,” she said. “Give them a safe place to rest their head tonight and start at it again tomorrow.”

Phillip Gardner: 704-869-1843; twitter.com/gazettephil

4K for Cancer

A 28-person cycling team is traveling from Baltimore to San Diego to raise money for the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults. The team stopped in Gastonia on Wednesday.

More information and to make donations: 4kforcancer.org

Team San Diego route, team member profiles and blogs: 4kforcancer.org/2014-baltimore-to-san-diego/